10/15/2009 19:08:08

"The Today Show" clip - evidentally Steve's media blitz has been fading a bit, this needs to be sung from the rooftops it's so cool:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23673523#23673523

Here's Steve taking some deep breaths after the interview with one of the contest winners (our very own LolitaRW)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGaCI_dwrwU

Around early 2008 he was also interviewed by RTÉ and I believe ITV? via the internet.

On sponsoring accounts
Drowned_Phoenician & WestCoastal, I'd been thinking about sponsorship over the day too.  Fark.com has an easy interface for TotalFarkers (premium members who pay for access) to sponsor a promising farker who contributes intelligent or witty things to the threads.  I like the idea of a general pool too, but there might be a couple members I'd like to sponsor specifically.

More Introductory Account Ideas
Back to the introductory account, another idea might be a simple 14 or 30 day trial period.  Or some combination with comment limits.

I've been looking at the site membership activity, and it does follow the typical zipf curve, with a little less than 10% logging in over the past month.  I'm still only just getting into large site development, but I'm worried that only a fraction of those will upgrade.

Goldstar already setup a poll that could take the pulse a bit better:
Membership Poll - Are you leaving on Nov 1st?

I don't want to be too contraian but could more limits on current free accounts be able to generate more money than going to all VIP accounts or nothing?  Put a decent amount of advertising, at the very least some text Google ads sprinkled in the pages, maybe a few graphic ones too.  Free accounts could be limited to a small number of outgoing messages/comments a day/week, 3 or so?  The ability to only create 1 poll per month, or perhaps 1 poll per quarter? (It seems there are an awful lot of polls, sometimes several duplicates)  Reduce the message inbox size from 100 to maybe 5 or 10?  Similar limits on free account blogs, maybe 1 per week? per month?

I'd remarked on several occassions that the free account was just as good as the pay one (I really only upgraded to support the site).  Combine all that with an interface (even with the current nonfunctionality and bugs) is cleaner and better than Facebook for the most part.  It's really been too generous.  As Quipu points out below, the pay account simply gets you access to 18+ pictures and probably most people fail to realize you also get a free e-mail "@redhedd.com" e-mail address, plus it lifts the 100 message limit.  I only recently activated the e-mail, and still don't use it much. 

A bigger divide between free and VIP would encourage more people to upgrade on their own, it'll keep everyone around - membership being the heart of a social network, and you'll be raking in some cash via the ads from the free accounts.  Looking into profile views, etc., it looks like this site is at or over the magical 100,000 hits/month so ads might bring some serious cash in, yea?  Or is it too narrow of a subject to bring in good clicks?

Aside from that speculation, there is one other point some members have brought up in the blogs:

Exisitng accounts will just become inactive and not deleted, right?  As in, if they try to login, they'll be asked to pay before they continue?  Other members will still be able to see their profiles?  Maybe still post to their profiles?

10/15/2009 18:49:35

Okay so lets make a list of the 10 hottest females...go.

jk

I'll be payin' up, much love.

10/15/2009 18:07:01

How does westcoastal end up getting credit for my idea! :)

The original draw for paying the $25 is access to the 18+ pictures. I would definitely like to see some expansion in this direction...

10/15/2009 17:08:31

Thank you Steve. I will be happy to join. Interestingly, I was already considering becoming a VIP member, for the sole reason of supporting Redhedd. Now that I understand your situation, I have a very good reason to join! And nobody will think I joined just to gain access to all of the naughty pics! Hahahaa!

Teasing. But, sincerely grateful for all you have done.

10/15/2009 15:20:54

just start a "sponsership" drive...
say i throw down 25 bucks...then there are 11 deserving members and so on...
i hadn't thought of the possibility of picking someone in particular...
but that's a good idea too as an option...
so there stevo put that in your thinkin cap and mull it over ...
there are alot of good people on here that could use the "stimulus" funds...
i feel lucky to have the extra few bucks for the vip membership..
and I would hate to see anyone leave on account of the money...
and steve you have given enough its now our turn to say thank you...
8)

10/15/2009 14:58:27

steve...  i think westcoastal is on to something.  i'll bet there are a good number of people on this site, including myself, who would sponsor somebody of his/her choosing.  i'd probably be willing to sponsor two or three.  i guess the problem you run into when you start doing that is everybody will try and get the "free lunch" as it were, even when they could afford to do it themselves.  such is the nature of things, especially in the U.S.

it needs refining, but what do you think of that idea??

10/15/2009 14:33:41

i would be willing to "sponser" a member as it were.
and if a few more would as well then maybe you could up the scholership numbers a bit...
times are tough and i appreciate this site and all you've done...
so let me know if i can pay the $25 to the kitty and continue on the vip plan
thank you so much
 8)

10/15/2009 10:12:15

I totally understand what you have to do Steve! I back you up all the way =] and I appreciate everything. I can't afford the 25 and Im sorry to say that, but I am in no way mad or upset! I love this site =]

10/15/2009 06:57:55

Hi. Already VIP here and happy to stay that way. Having an established income, it is easy for me. However, I do worry about the bulk of younger members, who really drive the site that won't be able to stay. CelticCurls ideas about an introductory account to continue to encourage growth are really good. Also, what about a point system for referrals, picture views, etc. The idea being that if someone's content is driving new subscriptions and hence increased revenue, they might get a discount or something. Another idea might be to start a volunteer "scholarship fund" to increase the number of free acounts beyond 10. I'd be willing to throw in an extra $5 per year towards such a fund. For every five of us that do that, you can give one more deserving contributor free access.

For us old, "mostly harmless" pervs (and I know I'm not the only one on here), we could start a group called the "sugar daddy's" or something. lol ... just kidding, not trying to be too creepy

10/15/2009 03:11:40

i wasn't aware of the today show thing...  anybody have a link to some video?

10/15/2009 00:56:10

I love us. :)

10/14/2009 23:04:45

FYI everyone:
Not only must he be paying a considerable bandwidth bill (it boggles my mind a bit) with nary a bit of advertising, while paying for Google Ads and such to link here, but he paid the winners of the 2008 contest to fly from anywhere in the world to New York to see him interviewed on "The Today Show" with Matt Lauer on St. Patrick's Day.  The winners were from the Netherlands (as you might guess ) so a hefty prize sum - plus all the free t-shirts...

I wished there were more VIPs already so it maybe didn't have to come to this.

Steve:
Already a VIP and will still happily pay.   I've noticed a few rough edges cropping up that have worried me like the database errors and search still hasn't worked for months   Hopefully some cash can grease the wheels.

I'm kind of surprised that you haven't done more revenue generation sooner, like implementing some Google Ads in the free accounts.

I was wondering though, could you still have introductory accounts?  Maybe ones that were limited to a certain amount of comment/messages per day (something really small) or even a cap on messages period (say 30 messages and then you have to upgrade).  Something to reel the people in.  The photo gallery size you have set is waaay more than generous too.  Even as a VIP, I think I've barely used 2 of the 100MB limit.  Maybe limit people to 2 or 3 moderately sized photos.

It concerns me a bit with referrals too.  Since you never got the business card idea done, I was going to send you template idea I had to print out on matte paper - they've had a bit more "Whoa, cool" response than that run of neon green ones I showed you before.  That way people could enter their name in a PDF and print them out at home.  As it is with referrals, I've found out of the 100 or so I've given out, about 11 signed up (6 with referral code, 5 without).  But 10% sounds kind of typical for that sort of thing.  What I'm getting at, is if I refer someone to this site and all they can see are the front page blogs (which often aren't redhead related) and a brief description, I think that referral level could plunge.  Same going for those following the ad links from other sites.

I haven't forgotten about trying to work with you for a booth at the festival for next year.  Money's kind of tight here myself, but was hoping to help with that cost if I could, so it's a bit "wait and see" right now.  I think it could be a blast and a big membership drive though.


So to sum up, major concern here is I worry about future growth if there isn't some sort of introductory account.  I'm hoping you get some serious money in your pockets though because you deserve it, and maybe some of those hardware and software issues can be addressed - maybe even some upgrades.

10/14/2009 22:48:35

Can I pay you with compliments?  ;-)